


Crossed Wires

by AnonymousVow



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: F/M, Historical, Mixed Signals, skews from serious to comedy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-14
Updated: 2014-08-17
Packaged: 2018-02-04 14:24:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 17,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1782250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonymousVow/pseuds/AnonymousVow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes England a hundred years to let America know he loves her. France may have had something to do with that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Wars and the Lost

**Author's Note:**

> De-anon from kinkmeme. I meant to use this as a vessel for lolarious and possibly smexy UK/femUS action, but somehow looking up a suitable WW1 reference turned the first part of this into something a little more serious than I thought. Later parts should be more light-hearted.

It’s 1917, and Arthur wonders if the world will end before this war does. He’s huddled in a half-made trench in Cambrai, feeling the damp of the mud seeping in through his tattered uniform. He’s gasping for air even though it’s been several minutes since his last physical exertion. There’s a sudden weight against his shoulder, and he startles slightly, too tired to have more of a reaction. He knows it’s Amelia before he looks. She’s heavy-eyed with exhaustion, smells as bad as he does, with all of the shocky, untempered jerks and twitches of those new to the trenches. Her hair has been hacked off into a military-style cut, and he mourns the loss of those golden curls. Dirt and grime obscure the feminine delicacy of her features enough for her to pass muster as a soldier.  
  
  
She says nothing, only leans against him, breathing shallowly. Beyond her, Arthur can see other American soldiers, from the US 12th Engineer Regiment, creeping into the trenches like frightened puppies, looking at their British counterparts for guidance. He blinks hard and his thoughts go back to a form at headquarters, mentioning the emergency requisition of these unblooded Yanks. They were only supposed to be shoring up British defenses behind the front lines. He looks at Amelia again, watches her hands twitch on her rifle, and he realizes he is in love with her at that moment.  
  
  
He is vastly irritated by this realization. He will be even more irritated when it takes him almost a hundred years to let her know.  
  
  
***  
  
He keeps an eye on her during the 1920s. When she’s in Paris, wandering about like she’s lost, he’s on her heels, silent and scowling, as unfriendly to her as he is to France himself. He cultivates a personal dislike and a reluctant professional respect for Hemingway and Fitzgerald. They produce work that could conceivably be called literature, quite an accomplishment for Americans, but they look too long and too often at Amelia.  
  
  
When Lithuania appears, looking for jobs, Arthur promptly seizes the opportunity and sets him in Amelia’s household. The other Nation is safely infatuated with Russia’s insane younger sister, too mild to attract America’s attention, and reliable enough to depend on for reports. By the time Lithuania leaves during the Great Depression, though, Arthur is glad that he is leaving - he dislikes the unexpected closeness that has sprung up between Lithuania and Amelia.  
  
  
***  
  
The Depression eases, and Germany begins to move. Arthur maneuvers frantically for time and space. He juggles diplomacy and war-readiness measures, checking on Poland, meeting with France, watching Russia, spying on Italy, planning for Germany.  
  
As his days grow more stretched and as war looms closer, a doom-heavy weight pressing on his mind, he finds it is increasingly difficult to ignore the fact that he wants Amelia. He wants her beside him. He wants her under him. He wants her above him. He wants her anyway he can get her. He craves her presence like wanting fire in the cold, relief after a night’s long watch. He dreams of her.  
  
  
In the past the carnal need of these dreams would have shamed him, would have been banished to the far corners of his memory. Now, he clings to them as one of the few pleasures left to him, replays them deliberately, retreats behind his eyes to these fantasies whenever he can to block out the drabness of his actual life.  
  
  
It’s not only sex he dreams of. He dreams of small things, little joys as common and as beautiful as wildflowers in a field or smooth stones in a river-bottom. He dreams of long-ago idylls in untouched colonial lands, but with a full-grown Amelia pressed against his side instead of her child-self in his arms. He dreams of kissing Amelia’s fingers, smiling up at her as she giggles, of her head in his lap as he reads aloud from a book of poetry, of sitting beside her at his kitchen table with stacks of paperwork, their arms and legs brushing as they work in comfortable silence. Sometimes there are tears on his cheeks when he awakens.  
  
  
His craving for Amelia and his country’s need for American manpower and materiel converge. Arthur uses all his craft and subtlety to whisper British suggestions and British sentiment into the American subconscious. Amelia drinks it in without question, and Arthur smiles when he sees. She never knows it’s propaganda until after the war. Matthew helps a lot, is encouraged by Arthur to visit with his sister as much as possible. Arthur wonders if Matthew would have helped if he knew about Arthur’s desires.  
  
  
***  
  
  
A day which would live on in infamy comes. It ends with Amelia’s Pearl Harbor in flames. Arthur feels only slightly guilty about dancing and singing when he hears the news. He flies to Pearl Harbor, delighting in the way Amelia leans into him, his arm around her shoulders, even as she weeps quietly for her lost, for her little brother the Philippines attacked the same day, for the doomed sailors they can hear hammering on the hulls from inside the sunken ships. He nods and accepts her condolences for the attacks on his own holdings in Asia, using them as a common thread of purpose to bind him and Amelia together against Japan.  
  
  
***  
  
  
He almost bursts with pride when he hears about Midway, almost bursts out of his pants when he thinks about Amelia thrashing Kiku from her carriers. There’s something about the thought of Amelia and her naval fleets that makes Arthur hot with desire.  
  
  
***  
  
  
It’s VE Day and all of Arthur is wild with joy. He can see that celebratory glee mirrored in Amelia’s eyes, and like his princesses they plunge anonymously through the London crowds, joining in the cheers and songs and dancing. Amelia looks radiant, swapping her too-large men’s uniform for a simple sundress, her hair long enough to curl again. Arthur can feel thousands of his men claiming their kisses by right of this day; he leans in to claim his own, is surprised by Amelia’s quick light lips meeting his cheek.  
  
  
He draws back, astonished, and has to chase after her when she darts back into the crowd. His cheeks tingle pleasantly. But he never does catch her for another kiss.

 

***

**Author's Notes**

**The Battle of Cambrai** : Three American engineer regiments – the 11th, 12th, and 14th – were engaged in construction activity behind the British lines at Cambrai in November, when they were unexpectedly called upon to go into the front lines during an emergency. They thus became the first A.E.F. units to meet the enemy.

 

 **The Lost Generation** : The "Lost Generation" was the generation that came of age during World War I. The term was popularized by Ernest Hemingway, and other famous members of the Lost Generation are F. Scott Fitzgerald and TS Eliot. A lot of America's brightest young minds moved to Paris in the 1920s, fleeing the austere materialism, rising corruption and crime, and Prohibition of the United States.

 

 **The British Security Coordination** : Created to propagandise the United States to enter WW2, and presented massive amounts of propaganda which they successfully concealed as news reports, not one of them having been "rumbled" as a propaganda piece during the war. It was led by William Samuel Stephenson, a Canadian and the senior representative of British intelligence for the entire western hemisphere during World War II.

 

 **Pearl Harbor** : Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor was in sync with Japanese attacks on the Philippines, and on the British Empire in Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong. One of Churchill’s private secretaries wrote in his diary that the two men “sort of danced around the room together,” when they heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor. Olson stressed during the interview that Churchill and Winant weren’t reacting to the horrific details of the Pearl Harbor attack. “They didn’t know those,” she said. “All they knew was that the United States was in the war.”

In Churchill's history of the Second World War he wrote of his emotions upon hearing that Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor. Only "silly people, and there were many,” underestimated American strength. For him, the entry of the United States into the war meant that the ultimate outcome—favorable for his country—was now assured. Feeling “the greatest joy” that the attack had arrayed his mother's country on the side of Britain, he “went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and thankful.”

There are accounts of US Naval personnel hearing their trapped brethren hammering on the hulls of the ships in the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack. Some were able to be rescued, some were not. "The sound was coming from below the water line and the sailors standing watch over the Oklahoma could only wait and listen until the banging stopped and the trapped sailors suffocated."

 

 **Battle of Midway:** In 1942, shortly after the Pearl Harbor attack, the United States Navy (USN) decisively defeated an attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) on Midway Atoll, inflicting irreparable damage on the Japanese fleet. British military historian John Keegan called it "the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare." It was Japan's first naval defeat since the Battle of Shimonoseki Straits in 1863.

 

 **VE Day** : "Victory in Europe" Day, when WW2 in Europe is declared officially over. In the United Kingdom, more than one million people celebrated in the streets to mark the end of the European part of the war. In London, crowds massed in Trafalgar Square and up The Mall to Buckingham Palace, where King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, accompanied by Prime Minister Winston Churchill, appeared on the balcony of the Palace before the cheering crowds. Princess Elizabeth (the future Queen Elizabeth II) and her sister Princess Margaret were allowed to wander incognito among the crowds and take part in the celebrations.


	2. Post-War Reconstruction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, still some historical references, but a bit less, and a bit more lighter-hearted than the previous part. Next part should be even less serious.

They have a Special Relationship now, Arthur and Amelia. Well, Arthur and Amelia and Matthew, but Matthew doesn’t count. Amelia worries about Arthur as post-war reconstruction begins, drops by periodically with food and tea and other gifts, fusses about Arthur's weight and sleep and health. Sometimes he awakens to hear her making repairs to his house, hammering nails in with her thumb and hefting heavy timber beams on her shoulder. Sometimes he wakes up to the smell of bacon and coffee and even over-sugared tea as she bring him breakfast in bed, saying that he needs more meat on his bones. (“Skinny old man!”) He loves it, all of it, and hides his pleasure under gruff bluster.   
  
She also worries about France and Germany, and he does not love this as much. When she calls him to arrange a precedent-setting, unheard-of airdrop operation to make sure Germany doesn’t starve, he says yes at once, and commits his RAF to her madcap scheme. Then he punches the wall until he feels better.  
  
***  
  
Arthur and Amelia are on better terms than they’ve been since before the Revolution. Their governments are friendly and cooperative, and Arthur and Amelia are more so. Amelia takes to fawning over British culture. They call it the British Invasion, and Arthur thinks dirty, innuendo-laden jokes everytime he hears it. Arthur’s enormously pleased about the whole thing.  
  
She squeals about how adorable the Beatles are, how she would just love to get Mick Jagger’s autograph, and how awesome Peter Townshend is. Arthur is somewhat less pleased about that.  
  
And he is downright jealous when young actor Sean Connery bows over Amelia’s hand and kisses it. Amelia visibly shivers. The worst part is having to grin and bear it when she turns to him after and insists on telling him how attractive Connery is, as if he’d have something to add to the discussion. Fucking Scotsman. Arthur hexes his brother the next time he sees him, ignoring the furious inquiries as to why.  
  
***  
  
Arthur has the time and resources to worry about his wardrobe again, which he does particularly when he notices Amelia’s appreciation of his fashion scene. He studies and adopts many tenets of Teddy Boy fashion, and revels in Amelia’s compliments. But an uncomfortable feeling begins arising at the earnest, admiring, but in no way inviting compliments he receives. And when she asks him for his help in clothes-shopping, he realizes: Amelia compliments him with a platonic, generic air - like someone complimenting another person's crossword puzzle skills. She isn’t admiring how Arthur looks, only admiring the clothes.  
  
He still helps her go clothes-shopping, of course. He both loves and hates how unself-consciously she models her choices - and his - in front of his eyes. On the one hand, the chance to admire Amelia in a mini-skirt with only her bra on in the dressing room is something to be treasured. On the other, it is made clear that Amelia does not see Arthur as a sexual being, or as a potential romantic interest.  
  
***  
  
Now Arthur has a new goal, to erase Amelia’s perception of him as her doting, fond, and in no way sexualized older brother and replace it with an image of Arthur as desirable, virile male.  
  
This is easier said than done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **The Marshall Plan** : The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was the American initiative to aid Europe, in which the United States gave economic support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II. The equivalent sum of US aid, if adjusted for 2013 currency, is roughly $148 billion. In descending order, the countries that got the largest amounts of US aid were the UK, France, and West Germany. ((Sidenote: I actually didn't know that bit about UK, France, and Germany receiving the most aid when I wrote this. Just a happy coincidence, kinda.))
> 
>  **Berlin Airlift** : In 1948, the Soviet Union blocked Western Allied access to the parts of Berlin not under Soviet control. The Americans decided against a more military response and consulted with the British RAF as to the possibility of airlifting supplies to West Berlin. Together they came up with the operational plans. The British asked Canada to contribute planes and crews. Canada refused primarily on the grounds that the operation risked war and Canada had not been consulted. The Australians contributed, naming their part "Operation Pelican".
> 
>  **British Invasion** : The British Invasion was a phenomenon that occurred in the mid-1960s when rock and pop music acts from the United Kingdom, as well as other aspects of British culture, became popular in the United States. 
> 
> **Teddy Boy Fashion** : Teddy Boy (also known as Ted) is a British subculture typified by young men wearing clothes that were partly inspired by the styles worn by dandies in the Edwardian period, and 1940s American style. The subculture started in London in the 1950s, and rapidly spread across the UK, soon becoming strongly associated with rock and roll.


	3. Really, We're Just Friends

As a former pirate-privateer, Arthur knows the value of shiny baubles. He finds his clothes from the pirate age, preserved with magic, and puts them on. He then takes them off and has to do a bit of sewing to adjust for his growth since those days.

 

Finally, he's finished, puts them on, straps his old cutlass to his waist, cocks the hat, and presents Amelia with a jeweled ring from the last remains of his old treasure hoard. It’s a golden ring with a deep blue sapphire inset, the ring cleverly worked to make it appear as if a golden eagle was holding the sapphire in its claws, wings outstretched. Arthur had always meant to give it to Amelia when his colony was old enough.  
  
  
Amelia’s initial reaction is gratifying. She pauses, actually speechless, and her eyes go up and down Arthur, drinking him in. He shivers slightly at the intensity of her regard. Then she smiles and says he looks perfect! ...as a reference for a pirates movie they’re doing in Hollywood, is Arthur free for a while?  
  
  
Arthur forces a smile and a nod. When he gives her the ring, she’s pleased and grateful, very appreciative, and thanks Arthur for the beautiful friendship ring.  
  
  
***  
  
The punk scene is an unmitigated disaster. Amelia visibly dislikes his leather and piercings. She doesn’t say anything, but the way she refrains from complimenting or even looking at him very much makes it clear how she feels.  
  
  
***  
  
Arthur is staying at Amelia’s New York penthouse for the week. She had invited him over for the week before the UN Grand Summit, saying they could have a movie marathon. He sniffed and remarked that it would at least save him money on hotel fees, but that she should be honored he deigns to grace her domicile with his presence. He actually fist-pumps when she invites him over the phone, though.   
  
And now they’re getting groceries. She’s stocking up on ice cream and cola; he’s buying tea, biscuits, and a toothbrush. He likes the domesticity of it, likes arguing with her about how there’s already have a box of tea at the apartment, (“But _that’s_ English Breakfast, and _this_  is Earl Grey! They’re completely different. What if I told you you only should buy one flavor of Ben & Jerry’s?”), likes pretending they’re shopping for their shared household instead of a guest and a hostess buying things.  
  
A bored teenage cashier listlessly runs their items over the infrared, watching dully as Arthur and Amelia continue arguing about what they’ll have for dinner tonight.  
  
“You together?” he asks, suddenly.  
  
Arthur can’t help a sudden smile. But before he can say anything, Amelia interrupts: “Oh no! We’re just friends!”  
  
The cashier blinks slowly. “...I meant your groceries.”  
  
  
Arthur turns bright red.  
  
  
***  
  
They’re watching a James Bond movie, and Arthur is better able to enjoy them when that Scottish fucker, Connery, is no longer the lead. They’re in Amelia’s Virginia house, curled up together on the couch. She treats their closeness with the for-granted carelessness of close siblings - no sexual tension for her. Arthur sighs quietly and savors her proximity, dreaming of a day when he’ll be in a position to make more of it.   
  
On-screen, Bond and Christmas Jones are lying in bed together, and Arthur feels a throb of half-congratulatory, half-jealous feeling for this fictional agent of his. It’s somewhat amusing how easy it is to imagine himself in Bond’s place and Amelia in Christmas’s. Really, a blue-eyed, light-haired American girl surnamed Jones, with a PhD in nuclear physics (Amelia had gotten herself one - legitimately - during the Cold War) and a penchant for thwarting, arguing with, and attracting her suave British companion? It is so close to Arthur’s ideal that he wonders idly if one of the script-writers had inadvertently tapped into the national (that is, Arthur’s) subconscious.  
  
“I was wrong about you,” Bond is saying languidly, on-screen.  
  
“Yeah, how so?” replies his lovely bedmate.   
  
“I thought Christmas only comes once a year,” smirks Bond, and Amelia laughs low in her throat. It makes Arthur shiver.   
  
“Oh, smooth,” she says admiringly.   
  
“Of course he is,” Arthur says, proudly. “He’s one of mine, after all.”  
  
Amelia turns her head to look at him and quirks an eyebrow. “Mattie told me Fleming based the guy off one of his people, though! Anyway, you seem more like a...Brian Falsworth.”  
  
“Who?”   
  
“Ah, he’s Union Jack - British superhero - in Marvel comics!”   
  
“Oh, comics…” Arthur yawns, deliberately, to show his utter disinterest in brightly-colored cartoon people. He feels a little tug of happiness that Amelia’s comics have British superheroes, though - knowing how much Amelia dotes on what he thinks of as her own makeshift national mythologies.   
  
  
***  
  
He tries the classic, flowers, only once. He remembers a tiny Amelia poring over books, showing him pictures of delicate, blue-violet blossoms. He remembers bringing back a bouquet of forget-me-nots from his own lands, using magic to keep them fresh and bright over the long sea-journey, and how Amelia had been so joyful to receive them.   
  
  
He decides to repeat the gift, and presents her with a brimming armful of beautiful forget-me-not flowers, fresh and fragrant and delicately perfumed.  
  
  
Amelia takes one look at the flowers and bursts into tears, weeping over someone named “Davie” for almost twenty whole minutes.   
  
***  
  
Arthur decides to take a new approach. If the classics fail to move Amelia, he needs to adopt one of her more...modern traditions. That is, digital flirting through pick-up lines.   
  
He painstakingly - he’s still not all that great with smartphones and their small touchscreens - types in the first message. As it sends, he imagines how the exchange would go:  
  
 _‘There are 20 letters in the alphabet, right?_ ’ he’d just texted.  
  
‘ _No, there are 26!_ ’ Amelia would reply.  
  
 _‘I must have missed u r a q t_ ,’ Arthur would send.  
  
‘ _That’s so sweet and awesome and lust-inspiring of you!’_ Amelia will say, or something thereabouts. _‘But there’s still one letter missing_!’  
  
Arthur will then provide the crowning glory of this exchange: ' _I’ll give you the d later_.' He spends fifteen minutes agonizing over the precise smiley to end that text with.  
  
' _Your mastery of American humour is so seductive! Take me now!'_ Amelia will then say.  
  
Arthur is lost in a pleasant daydream involving Amelia, Devonshire cream, and licking when Amelia’s reply comes in.  
  
Arthur: _There are 20 letters in the alphabet, right?_  
  
Amelia: _Yeah_! :)  
  
Arthur is deeply depressed about this reply, and he’s not sure it’s because he can’t give her the d, or because apparently he’s failed at imparting literacy to her.

 

***

**Author's Notes**

(because for some reason, this site seems to be stacking the end-notes...)

 

The "Christmas only once a year" quote, and Christmas Jones (I really was surprised when I found out about her. She even kinda looks a bit like how I imagine Amelia) are from the 1999 James Bond flick, with Pierce Brosnan in the lead,  **"The World is Not Enough."**

As for him being based on a Canadian, Fleming wrote in  _[The Sunday Times](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sunday_Times)_  of 21 October 1962, that Bond was: "a highly romanticized version of a true spy. The real thing, the man who became one of the great agents of the [Second World War] is William Stephenson."

 **William Stephenson** , who was mentioned in the first chapter, is a Canadian spymaster, and head of the British Security Coordination. However, since writing this, Wikipedia has shown a lot of other (mostly British, also Australian) inspirations for James Bond (who is named after an American, lol). So, take it as Matthew boasting to his sister. He probably also mentioned Wolverine in this conversation.   
  
 **Brian Falsworth** is the second "Union Jack" character in Marvel, and chronologically speaking the first Marvel character depicted in a gay relationship.  
  
Originally, I made the flowers harebells, but **forget-me-nots** seem to be more fitting.


	4. My Best Friend Arthur, Who's Gay

They’re at a diplomatic party in Winfield House - the dresscode is black-tie, the cuisine superb. Amelia is enjoying herself, pleased - as she rarely is - about the gown she’s wearing. It’s two-toned and belted, blue and white slashed with gold, a sleek, modern-cut affair - picked up here in London as it happened. (She’d forgotten there was a party at all, had neglected to pack anything beyond jeans and shirts, and had to drag Arthur out that afternoon to pick up something suitable. It was a good thing Arthur was there, he was like her own personal Carson Kressley!)  
  
  
So she’s looking fine and knows it, and everyone is being nice to each other, and the canapés are yummy and the champagne bubbly, so she’s bubbly too.  
  
  
Arthur’s there, of course, looking  ~~positively edible~~ all James Bond-ish and cool in his tuxedo. (She’d lied when she said he didn’t remind her of James Bond). Her eyes drift to him constantly, without her conscious allowing of it, and she smiles whenever she sees him. She likes it when he smiles back.  
  
  
***  
  
Arthur can feel his smile straining at the corners of his lips. _Christ_ , but she looks good. He had enjoyed their shopping trip, and getting to watch her model various garments in various states of undress, entirely too much. She’d been so accommodating, as she rarely ever was, cheerfully accepting his orders and suggestions with a trusting belief in Arthur’s expertise. It’s a bit hilarious, actually, as he himself admits that next to neighbors like Francis and the Italian brothers he’s hardly an expert, not as involved with his own fashion houses as they are with theirs. He simply bases his suggestions on what he thinks looks nice on her. In areas where he is actually expert, like diplomacy and naval warfare and cooking, she always argues, always insists on putting her own distinct stamp on proceedings, but when it comes to clothes she is as biddable and easily pleased as she had been as a child.

 

Of course, today he had enjoyed that in an entirely adult way.  
  
  
He is taking too much pleasure in the fact that she is in a British gown - not a New York gown, not Italian, and not bloody French, but British - and that she is wearing what he had chosen for her. His entire body is humming with forcibly-dampened but smoldering want, and he’s more aware of her, half the room away and talking to someone else, than he is of his own current conversational partner.  
  
  
He darts another glance at Amelia, admiring once again the smooth curve of her spine, displayed so well by the backless, form-fitting gown. He pauses and scowls as he notices other men, passing by, similarly admiring.  
  
“Excuse me,” he murmurs.  
  
***  
  
  
The thing is, it had been okay not to talk about Arthur’s being gay - _before_. In fact, it had been more than “okay”, it had been the only possible course of action. Because, before, it was a “dark secret”, the kind of thing people were lynched and killed and broken for. It had been a secret that she needed to keep for Arthur’s sake, to allow him to love who he really loved and be who he really was without judgment or censure.  
  
But today, it’s no longer like that. Today, she can tell people about Arthur and his orientation, and they’ll understand and treat him not as a subhuman, but as a person who happens to love other males. Today, not mentioning it feels uncomfortably like hiding it, or trying to ignore it - neither of which are very good things for a heroine to do.  
  
  
So, she will stand up for his right to be himself, and she will acknowledge who he is. She’s standing with a small group of people, and they’re discussing the legalization of same-sex marriage in England and Wales.  
  
"The scriptures make it abundantly clear that a Christian nation that abandons its faith and acts contrary to the Gospel (and in naked breach of a coronation oath) will be beset by natural disasters such as storms, disease, pestilence and war. It is the Prime Minister's fault that large swaths of the nation have been afflicted by storms and floods. He has arrogantly acted against the Gospel that once made Britain 'great' and the lesson surely to be learned is that no man or men, however powerful, can mess with Almighty God with impunity and get away with it for everything a nation does is weighed on the scaled of divine approval or disapproval,” storms a white-haired councillor, hands flung about emotionally.  
  
Amelia grimaces; others, both American and British, some disliking the ruling and some supporting, visibly wince. Quietly, people try to put more distance between themselves and the angry man. Even the Americans are aghast - to show so much genuine emotion at a function! Why, it goes against all manners of diplomatic axioms.  
  
“ _Quite_. Without God-based guidelines setting out clear rules about marriage only being allowed between a man and a woman, I fear that the entire country will become one big sweaty bumchain,” drawls a tall, dark-haired officer with a wicked smile, who looks more British than England does himself.  
  
Amelia chokes on both his exquisitely deadpan delivery and at his inadvertent reference to Arthur, laughter frantically smothered in her throat.  
  
“Now that the government has introduced same-sex marriages, how long will it be before I’m hanging out in gay bars entirely against my will?” the officer continues, watching the beautiful young American out of the corner of his eye and not at all averse at trying to win more laughter from her.  
  
The councillor scowls at his younger countryman. “It’s not a laughing matter. These Saharan sandstorms, it’s a clear sign from God...”  
  
Amelia snorts and puts in her own two cents, something she does quite often. “Well, kudos to the United Kingdom, and I’ll hope the whole United States follows their example,” she says. “My best friend, Arthur, who’s gay...”  
  
She is interrupted by the sound of breaking crystal. She turns her head to see Arthur staring at her in horror, hand still half-cupped and raised from the champagne flute he’s just dropped on the floor.  
  
***   
  
 **AN** :

 **Winfield House** is the official residence of the Ambassador of the United States of America to the Court of St. James's - occupying twelve and a half acres on the northwest side of Regent's Park.

  
 **Carson Kressley** was the fashion expert on the TV show “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy”.  
  
I’m imagining Amelia’s gown to look like this Stella McCartney gown:

 

   
  
 **Same-sex marriage** was recently legalized in England and Wales. A councillor named **David Silvester** blamed Britain’s recent weather problems on this, and the rant above is comprised of his quotes.   
  
The officer’s replies are from [this satirical article](http://upiknews.com/same-sex-marriage-set-to-turn-uk-into-throbbing-orgy-of-same-sex-depravity-warn-traditionalists/).


	5. The Chunnel Means Nothing

The look of horror on Arthur’s face makes Amelia’s own blanch. She does not protest as Arthur surges forward, grabbing her arm in a grip strong enough to bruise, and follows meekly in his wake as he pulls her along. Inside, she is roiling. Is Arthur still intent on staying in the closet? Has she accidentally fucked things up for him and his lover and his government - again?   
  
And worse, in the back of her mind is an insistent little voice sighing in relief, because if Arthur is still in the closet they can still hang out together without having to worry about his boyfriend, she doesn’t have to see them being all kissy and lovey-dovey together, she can still drop by anytime she likes without thinking “but what if Arthur's with _him_ ” and it’s just so _selfish_ , so _mean_ and so  _self-centered_ , that she feels disgusted with herself and she doesn’t want to think like that but she _does_ and she can’t kill the voice and anyway after this maybe Arthur won’t _want_ to hang out with her in the closet or not…  
  
By the time Arthur pulls Amelia into an empty room and slams the door shut, she is a great big ball of guilt and self-loathing and regret, and she gives him the most hangdog expression ever.  
  
“I’m sorry,” she babbles before he can say a word. “I’m sorry I jumped the gun. I’m sorry I told everyone you were gay without checking with you, I just assumed, because you were legalizing gay marriage, that you were coming out of the closet, that you were finally going to get married in the open, so I was trying to help, I didn’t mean to spill the beans, I’m sorry Arthur, I’m sorry, I’m _so_ sorry…”  
  
As Arthur listens to her, his face cycles through a variety of interesting colors. His hands flail meaninglessly and he swallows hard before wheezing, “I’m not gay…”  
  
Amelia is still writhing with apologetic guilt, so she’s perhaps a trifle over-cheery when she tries to reassure him.   
  
“It’s okay, Arthur, you don’t have to pretend with me. I know already! And I love you just the way you are…” She snaps her mouth shut as that last slips past, and hopes he registers it as sisterly emotion, because that’s what she’s trying to be…  
  
But Arthur only seems angry. “I’m not fucking gay! How many times do I have to say it! I’m not ‘pretending’ or ‘in the closet’...I’m not gay!”  
  
Amelia opens her mouth to try and reassure him some more. But then he lunges forward, trapping her against the wall with his body, hands on her arms pinning them down, and his face is so close to hers.   
  
“I’m not gay! I’m in love with _you_!” he gasps, and kisses her.  
  
She’s blank for a long, tense moment, feels his lips mashed hard against hers, his fingers squeezing and easing and squeezing again on her bare arms, the warmth of him pressed against her, the scent of him so close, his aftershave and some champagne that must have splashed on him and the usual wind-off-the-North-Sea and oak-and-ash-and-thorn and English-earth-after-English-rain that’s essential to him, taking note of all these sensations in detached, clinical, oddly detailed fashion.   
  
And then she shoves him away, hard.   
  
  
***  
  
He stumbles back, eyes wide and dark, and is about to say something - but is struck silent, shocked, when he sees that she’s crying.   
  
“ _Don’t_!” she sobs, wrapping her arms around herself protectively and huddling away from him. “Oh, _please_ , don’t!”   
  
Arthur feels as if his heart is trying to compress into a cold hunk of ice in his chest.  
  
“That’s cruel of you, Arthur,” she protests tearfully. “I was wrong, but - that’s cruel! Don’t use my feelings for you to ...it’s not fair, I’m...I won’t be your beard!”   
  
For a single hysterical second the image of a tiny Amelia hanging from his jaw like an actual beard enters Arthur’s imagination, before he remembers what that means in American slang. His already reeling mind staggers for another moment under this new information, on top of an already stunning series of revelations.   
  
He takes a step back towards her, begs her to listen without really knowing what he’s saying. But it seems to work, as she lifts her face, tears having smudged her carefully-applied and so rarely donned makeup.   
  
“But Francis said…” she stammers, and Arthur feels a missing puzzle-piece of this insane picture slam into place.

The frog.

Of course. Where else did so much of his suffering come from? 

  
He swells with indignation. “You would listen to what _the frog_ said?”  
  
“But…he had a marriage certificate...he said that’s why you built the Chunnel...”  
  
Arthur goes pale, and then red. “That’s - that’s not at all true! I swear,” he goes to his knees, his voice is trembling and he is projecting every ounce of sincerity and earnest feeling he has, and this is the most sincere and earnest he has ever felt about anything ever, and he knows she knows him enough to tell so she needs to understand this truth or else everything is worthless. “I am not gay, I am not married to France, I do not want to marry France, I never have, I never will, and I am in love with you! For, upon my soul, Amelia…”   
  
Her eyes are very wide, and she is staring at him as if he is someone she has never seen before.   
  
“Amelia, I am in love with you. I love you like a man loves a woman, not like siblings, not platonically, I’ve wanted you and loved you for years, decades, and please believe me…” his voice breaks on this last and he winces, but it seems to be the thing that finally convinces Amelia because she’s kneeling beside him, grabbing his hands, looking into his face with a dawning light in her eyes and Arthur lets loose a shuddering breath because she believes him.   
  
“I - I love you too, Arthur,” she chokes out, in a voice still tearful but for a different reason. “I’ve been trying not to because I thought it was wrong but - I love you!”   
  
Arthur shudders again, this time in joy, and this time when he kisses her she reciprocates.  
  
***  
  
Somehow, they’re on the floor, though Arthur doesn’t remember when they had gone from somewhat upright on their knees to him laying on top of her, but it can’t have interrupted them much because they’re still kissing, and her mouth is wondrously soft and sweet and he is drinking in her scent and warmth and taste and feel and the little breathless sounds she makes when he laps at the inside of her mouth.  
  
They finally have to pull away, gasping for breath, and Arthur immediately begins to lave soft, open-mouthed kisses along the delicate line of her jaw, tongue flicking out to taste her skin and the tiny remnants of salt-tears. Her resulting shiver is more delicious than words can say.  
  
He’s thrusting against her, he notices dimly and rather late, ripples of pleasure building in him, and she’s making louder, just as breathless sounds of approval with every movement of his hips, and god it’s better than he had dreamed, better than he had hoped, and…  
  
...his orgasm takes him like a shock of white light, his eyes rolling lightly back into his head before he melts into her, his groan muffled by the soft skin of her throat. He floats for a moment of sated bliss before the knowledge of what has just happened slams into him.   
  
He keeps his eyes closed, uncomfortably aware of the still-warm sticky wetness in his trousers, as he hears Amelia’s soft, questioning voice call his name. “Ah...Arthur…?”   
  
***  
  
 **AN** :   
  
100 years of pent-up lust + 1 whole day of being turned on + a roller-coaster series of revelations + make-out session = well, what did you expect, Arthur? 


	6. We're Kind of Quantum

Arthur calls it “the metaphysical/metamagical nature inherent in Nations,” or, when he is feeling particularly poetic, “There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in human philosophy, and  _we_  are those things.”   
  
Francis would begin to quote René Descartes and Nicolas Malebranche, while Amelia tends to simply chirp, “We’re kind of quantum.”   
  
What they are all referring to is the fact that, as Nation personifications, they exist both in a focused, avatar-like way in a fixed space and time, and in a country-wide, harder-to-comprehend way bound only - and then not entirely - by geopolitical borders. Their existence is both dualistic and spectrum. It gives them all headaches when they think about it.  
  
What Arthur really cares about, now, is that as the Nation of England he can move anywhere in said kingdom in less than a blink of an eye. Bringing a powerful Nation like America along is a tad more dicey, but he thinks she’s in the appropriate frame of mind to…  
  
...there’s a flash and a muffled silence, and suddenly they’ve left Winfield House and are in one of England’s oldest castles - an estate formally held by House Kirkland (membership: one, with cadet/antecedent - depending on who’s talking - branches in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales) since Domesday Book.   
  
****  
  
He blinks, inhales the cool, soothing scent of stone and wood, of a small castle that has been comfortably  _his_  for centuries. The air is fresh and clean - the brownies must have been keeping up with the householding duties.   
  
“Oh cool,” Amelia says, used to both Nation-traveling and this castle in particular. She wriggles in his arms, looking around with interested eyes. “Hey, this is your place in Hampshire! I always liked it.”  
  
While she happily looks her fill, Arthur is looking at her.  
  
His eyes track over her tear-smudged make-up – the reddish-purple patches on her arms where bruises are forming, darkening already thanks to her ridiculously fast metabolism and healing rate – the small wet stain on the front of her dress.  
  
 _‘Good Lord,’_ he thinks, his self-recrimination acidic.  _‘Is it possible to have had a less impressive confession? Having to prove I wasn’t attracted to the frog, hurting her, forcing myself on her, making her cry, and then...’_  
  
‘I suppose I should be grateful I didn’t vomit on her shoes,’ he thinks somewhat morbidly, then worriedly checks if he is feeling at all nauseous.  
  
“Amelia,” he breathes, interrupting her out-loud musings as to whether they can get delivery, “Can I…disrobe you?”  
  
She arches an elegant eyebrow.   
  
“Arthur,” she says, and his heart hangs on her words, “...that’s ‘may I’, not ‘Can I’.”  
  
He blinks, and then his jaw drops. Had she - had she really just corrected his grammar?  
  
“And yes, you may,” she continues, mischief a gleeful spark in her blue eyes. “After all, you had so much practice helping me with it earlier today.”   
  
She pauses, and her arched brow furrows slightly in thought. “Heyyyyy...wait a minute. If you’re not gay, then why have I been letting you in my dressing room all along, and why didn’t you say anyth---”  
  
She’s interrupted by another kiss, Arthur relieved and comforted by her evident good humor.   
  
***   
  
To be completely honest, the only thing Amelia had thought, as Arthur humped himself to orgasm, was that it was really kinda hot. It had been fun to watch Arthur lose control, gratifying to know she could reduce Mr. Stiff-Upper-Lip to Mr. Stiffy-in-his-Pants. And Arthur’s O-face was really something, something to save in her memory for nights when she had to resort to toys and her own hands (hopefully, these nights would be fewer now.)   
  
But she can tell that Arthur does feel bad about it, and she also knows that trying to reassure him about it would only make things worse - no matter that she really didn’t mind. Amelia’s always been more observant than the world gives her credit for; it’s a strategy that’s served her well through the years.   
  
So she is quite content to lay back and let Arthur do as he likes, give him a measure of the control he had lost so spectacularly and to such nice effect back at Winfield House. Her expensive gown is now a puddle of fabric on the floor, and she’s now reclined on the buttery-soft leather of his chesterfield sofa - she can remember helping him pick it out - as he looks down at her with a pleasingly intense expression in his eyes. His castle (she’d always loved the whole concept of Arthur owning a castle, secretly loving the thought of being romanced and bedded in her lover’s castle like some kind of Harlequin bodice-ripping heroine and embarrassed about it because those aren’t the types of heroines she’s supposed to admire and Arthur wasn’t - she thought - the kind of guy she should have those fantasies about, and now here she is...) has electric wiring and even the new, eco-friendly lightbulbs but the only illumination right now is from the candles. When had Arthur lit them...? Then she’s distracted by how his eyes glow in the candlelight, the flicker of shadows and gold on his face.  
  
She’s not all 'quiet and obedient maiden', of course - she jokes and snipes and maintains a snarky if affectionate commentary as Arthur takes off her dress, pushes her onto the couch, removes her high-heeled shoes and gently massages her aching feet (those shoes were gorgeous, but torturous) for a moment. And as she is bared to his eyes, her chattering speeds up, gains an audible edge of nervousness she can’t quite hide, no matter how she tries.  
  
Amelia doesn’t really do lacey underthings. And sure, her underwear today had been specially picked to not be, you know, embarrassingly obvious under her form-fitting gown, but it was still, somehow, childish when Amelia compares it to the red and black lace and silk things people expect during the sex scenes. Her stuff is just white, cotton and lycra, and picked up on sale at Target.   
  
So she wiggles uncomfortably, and is mentally searching for the last time she weighed herself, even though her doctor AND her Boss’s wife had told her not to weigh herself too often and even Mattie had admitted she’d lost weight when he never says that unless he means it sooo...  
  
“Ah god,” Arthur breathes above her, and it sounds like a prayer and it sounds like when he’s drunk all at once, “You’re beautiful.”  
  
Amelia blinks hard and “Really?” slips out before she knows it. She winces. It’s not only the vulnerability that bothers her; it’s the thought that she’s fishing for compliments, maybe subconsciously, because she  _knows_  Arthur isn’t the type to lie to get her in bed, despite his piratical past. So if he says she’s pretty, she should shut up and thank him...  
  
But Arthur’s face has softened and not in a pitying way either, and he leans down to kiss her, achingly gentle. “Yes, really,” he tells her, and proceeds to back his statement with his hands and mouth.  
  
***   
  
Yes, it had been shameful to climax so fast, humping Amelia like a dog and with all the stamina of an untouched schoolboy, but there’s a silver lining to that embarrassing cloud. His inadvertent and premature orgasm had taken the edge off, so to speak, and his mind is wonderfully clear and focused on Amelia now. And he’s free to devote himself to her pleasure.  
  
He can’t believe how much more the reality is than all his feverish dreaming, all the stolen glimpses and glances over the years. Amelia sprawled on his sofa, golden skin set off by candlelight and white fabric and dark leather - it’s better, far better, than anything before. And he wants to just sit and drink it all in until his eyes and mind are filled with her, but he’s also eager to move forward, to peel off her last remaining clothes, to muss her caramel-blond curls, to coax sounds of arousal and pleasure from her...  
  
Her nervousness, when he realizes, is a bit of a shock, because Arthur had thought he had been perfectly obvious in how desirable she is, much he wants her. How can she possibly think she’s anything less than devastatingly beautiful in his eyes? Look at what she had already reduced him to! Like an animal, like a boy who had never seen beauty, all slaved to her.  
  
But she is nervous, and Arthur resolves to wipe that uncertain look from her face. He moves slowly, touches gentle and whispering. He worships her with fingertips and tongue and lips, murmuring heartfelt praise into the warmth of her curves.   
  
Her words descend the scale from slightly shrill nervousness to a deeper, deliciously throaty pitch that he has never heard from her before, and then trail off entirely into wordless expressions of pleasure and desire. He loves it, loves drawing those sounds from her. He nibbles at her ear, noting how well she responds, his fingers stroking her shoulders and collarbone and marveling at the shape of the bones beneath her skin.   
  
Then he’s playing with her breasts, and of course they’d be the exact perfect size and weight to fill his palm, because of course she’s perfectly shaped for him, and him for her, because they’re fated, yes, fated, and she’s got her own hands on him, arms thrown around his shoulders, hands scrabbling for something to grab as he bends his head to suckle.  
  
“Ah- Arthur!” she cries out, and Arthur grins around the engorged nipple in his mouth. Her hips are rolling now, and he’s careful to keep his own safely away to prevent a second embarrassment. His hand slips down, over the warm soft length of her belly, before sliding into the unfairly arousing white panties that are the only garments left on her. She’s gratifyingly wet and slick around his finger as he slowly slides inside her. The surprised jerking of her body, and the way her back arches slightly as he eases more of his finger inside, is something Arthur knows he’ll be replaying in his dreams.  
  
By the time Arthur slides both her panties and himself down her body, Amelia’s panting, eyes glazed over, shameless in spreading her legs for him. He brings his fingers back into play, sucking at her clit as his fingers fill her and stroke her and learn the intimate details of her. He pulls his fingers out, replacing them with his tongue as he reaches up and lays his wettened fingers against her slack mouth. He shivers as she begins to suck, tasting the liquid traces of her own desire off him.   
  
He builds her up into a frenzy of arousal, too consumed with want and need to be nervous or uncertain, and then he pushes her over the edge with his tongue lashing deep inside her and his thumb flicking at her clit. She screams his name as she comes, and Arthur is grinning, feeling like he’s made up for his earlier performance.   
  
He murmurs into her ear as she comes back down, inhaling the scent of her, charged now with the smell of sex and arousal, licking sweat off her skin. He watches with delight as her eyelashes flutter and she makes a visible effort to focus her vision.   
  
“Was it good for you, darling?” he asks semi-mockingly, because it is satisfyingly obvious how good she had found it.   
  
“Not fair,” she mumbles in reply, and Arthur frowns in puzzlement.   
  
“Not fair. ‘m naked and you’re not,” she continues, glaring up at him with still slightly-unfocused eyes. Then suddenly the world is whirling, he’s slammed on his back, and she’s straddling his hips.   
  
“Not fair,” she says again, and begins to take his clothes off.   
  
***  
  
 **AN:**  
  
  
 **Castle:** It’s my headcanon that Arthur was originally Wessex, kingdom of Alfred the Great. Hampshire, which was the center of the Kingdom of Wessex, also holds Winchester, which used to be the capital of England. So I made up a little castle which Arthur would have used as his residence back then, and which he still keeps up. It’s modernised, kind of, on the inside, but he’s got a crack team of brownies happily living in and maintaining the castle. Also, its grounds are a sanctuary and haven for the fae. There’s a herd of unicorns that live there too.   
  
 **Hampshire:** As a side note, I discovered the US also has ties to Hampshire. Hampshire was the departure point of some of those later to settle on the east coast of what is now the United States, in the 17th century, giving its name in particular to the state of New Hampshire. The counties of Isle of Wight and Southampton in Virginia reflect the origins of some of the earliest Jamestown settlers.


	7. Home is Where the Heart Is (and other body parts)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Added a little extra section in the beginning for flybynight, who commented about wanting to see America taking the initiative. :)

 

Later on, Arthur will swear that Amelia literally ripped his clothes off - "Like a caveman! Or a cavewoman!" - although she will protest and point out that his clothes are, in fact, later found in perfect shape except for maybe that one button. In any case, he finds himself naked underneath her before he can really process what's happening, whatever he was about to say forgotten as she takes his erection in her hand. Somehow, while he was eating her out, his own reawakened erection had been an afterthought, easily ignored in favor of coaxing more sounds of pleasure from Amelia, but now he can't think of anything else except how hard he is. 

 

She slides her fist up and down his shaft, and his eyes cross involuntarily. He tries to lift his head, wanting to see her hand on him, but somehow his muscles aren't obeying, and he can only shudder in ecstasy as she gently squeezes him at his base. He slides into a daze, his head thrashing, and his world narrows to Amelia's hand on him and his pulsing, throbbing need. He whines when suddenly there's no more touching, no more sensation, and he hears Amelia's breathless laugh right before his cock is suddenly enveloped in soft, slick heat, and her laugh turns into a moan. He curses and jerks his hips without thinking, and they moan together at the sweet friction. 

 

He's inside her - buried deep inside her secret warmth, still slick and open from his ministrations earlier, and Arthur's head spins from the mere fact, that it is reality and not just dreaming, and oh god, oh god, oh god...

 

Their rhythm is hard and fast and desperate. Amelia moves on top of him with the most wantonly ecstatic look on her face, Arthur only able to stare in worship. His hips jerk in unthinking unison, leverage difficult from his position flat on the ground. Her face is flushed, glowing with sweat in the candle-light, and as her hands roam over her own body, one fondling her breasts and the other going between her legs to play with her clit, Arthur is making thin, high-pitched needy sounds, almost whimpering with lust. Suddenly he surges upwards, into a sitting position, grabbing Amelia's hands and replacing them with his own, unable to resist his urges. Amelia squeals at the sudden change of angle, the sudden feel of Arthur's hands on her, in her, and Arthur replies with a deep groan. 

 

She bounces on his lap, taking him in deeper and mewling with the pleasure of it, and Arthur feels his orgasm, so much more powerful than the last, building and building and building and then...

 

They both scream as they come, Amelia set off by the feeling of Arthur pulsing hot inside her, and they shiver and shake in the aftermath, still slumped together. 

 

"That was...that was..." Arthur gasps, once words somewhat return to him. "Oh fuck. Oh god. That was... _god!_ " 

 

Amelia just moans in wordless, happy agreement. 

 

*** 

 

 

Frankly, Arthur is a both a little frightened and impressed as to how insatiable he is now that Amelia understands he is not gay and has, amazingly, indicated she enjoys sex with him. They hadn’t even been able to get out of the living room. They fall asleep on the sofa, both simply passing out after their last round of frantic, rough-paced sex, and he wakes up still inside her. And then…  
  
The only reason they make it out of the room at all is dehydration and hunger. She pulls on his dress shirt, not bothering to button it up, and he makes do with his underwear. Then they head to the kitchen, blinking blearily whenever windows let sunlight in - and from the angle and color of the light, it’s mid-afternoon, when and how long had they slept?   
  
He can’t stop looking at her, touching her - hands tracing the line of her spine as he had done so often during the party with his eyes, touching her collar just to press his fingers against the little jut of bone, cupping her bottom with both his hands and grinning when she squawks and jumps. When they finally make it to the kitchen and she is standing still at the sink, gulping down water, he presses himself against her back, burying his face in her hair and inhaling her scent - ocean breezes both Pacific and Atlantic, wind-blown prairie grass and sun-baked sands and - he loves the familiarity of it - cool New England woods, unwashed and sweaty and layered with sex and musk and his own scent overlaying. She whines, because he’s making it difficult to drink, but she’s still leaning against him, soft and compliant in his arms.   
  
And then, of course, they fuck in every position possible in the old-fashioned kitchen. They actually sit down at the wooden kitchen table for a meal. Granted, the meal is simply hastily-microwaved beef and mash from Tesco’s; and also, Amelia sits in Arthur’s lap the whole time and midway through he is once again inside her, and they try, for sheer curiosity, to make it through the rest of the food without moving. But she wriggles, and he squirms, and they throb, and he ends up fucking her while she still has mashed potatoes in her mouth. 

*** 

  
They eventually make it up to Arthur’s master bedroom suite, with its luxurious, room-dominating four-poster bed. Amelia insists on bringing snacks and a jug of water with them. The snacks and the water are long gone by the time Arthur emerges once more from the bedroom.  
  
Stark naked and not caring about that fact, he wanders back to the kitchen for a drink. On his way back, he notices a light blinking steadily in the darkened - it seems to be evening - living room. It turns out to be his cellular phone. Its battery is nearly depleted. Considering how Amelia had modified it in a fit of pique about Arthur always forgetting to charge his phone, so that it has a ridiculously long life, it means Arthur and Amelia have lost track of more time than he’d thought. His screen reveals a worrying number of missed calls and unread messages.  
  
Feeling a few faint pricklings of conscience, but too high on post-sex endorphins to feel them that much, Arthur considers ignoring the phone. In the end he sighs and calls his Prime Minister as he makes his way back to the bedroom.  
  
His call is answered midway through the first ring.  
  
“Mr. Kirkland?” His Prime Minister’s voice is strained but very polite.  
  
“Good evening, Prime Minister,” Arthur yawns in reply. “How may I help you?”  
  
“Where are you, Mr. Kirkland?”  
  
Arthur begins climbing the stairs, smiling hazily at a gaggle of giggling fairies. “At home.”  
  
The man’s voice is almost creaking with tension. “And where, exactly, is home, if I may ask?”  
  
“Where the heart is,” Arthur quips.  
  
“Mr. Kirkland,” the Prime Minister says, after a long, in-drawn breath. “We have been very...concerned about your disappearance from Winfield House - yours and Ms. Jones’. Is Ms. Jones with you? The Americans would very much like to know where their Nation is.”  
  
“...it’s something of a personal matter, Prime Minister. I’ll have to get back to you on that,” Arthur says, trying to hedge.  
  
“Mr. Kirkland,” the Prime Minister’s voice, for the first time Arthur’s ever known the stoic, placid man, is rising. “I’m afraid I must insist. It’s very important that we know where you are…”   
  
Arthur’s back in his room now, leaning against his door-frame. He’s looking at Amelia, sprawled so beautifully in the middle of his bed. He sits down at the edge, admiring the way his ( _his!_ ) white sheets are draped over her, as artfully as if they were deliberately arranged, her long (so wonderfully, elegantly  _long_ ) tanned limbs bare, her golden hair spread out on his ( _his!_ ) pillows. and he can see his marks on her, imprints of his mouth on her neck and thighs, the smears of his seed on her skin, even the guilt-inducing bruises on her arms, and something primal and possessive rises in him.  
  
“Well, if you want to know the truth,” he purrs, or growls, and whether it’s one or the other a hearer would be reminded that the symbol of the British crown is a golden lion, “Ms. Jones is currently sleeping in my bed, resting after I fucked her to multiple screaming orgasms.”   
  
There is a moment of silence. Then, a babble of voices - including distinctly American ones - arises from the cellphone. Belatedly, Arthur realizes he must have been on speakerphone and that’s why the Prime Minister had been so polite. 


	8. The Roosevelt Protocol

Arthur is still trying to decide what to say to the suddenly chaotic assembly of Americans and Britons when Amelia drapes herself over him, chin resting on his shoulder. Distracted as he is by the sensation of her breasts against his back, it is easy for Amelia to pluck the loudly-squawking cell phone from Arthur’s hand.  
  
“General Lane, is that you?” she drawls, throatily, and Arthur shivers just from the sound. “Initiate Roosevelt Protocol. I repeat, initiate Roosevelt Protocol. Authorization code - Yankee Yankee Echo Alpha Hotel One Four Three Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. Acknowledge.”   
  
There is another silence, and then a shaky male voice with the magnolia accents of South Carolina answers her. “A-acknowledged, ma’am. But - are you…”  
  
She laughs. “I’m fine, General. Everything is occurring with my consent - my enthusiastic consent, even. Tell the Boss it’s all good, I’m enjoying myself a lot, and I’ll be here for the indefinite future, okay? Thanks.”   
  
She then presses the end button and tosses Arthur’s phone carelessly somewhere in the vast expanse of bed linen.   
  
“Come back to bed, baby,” she says, pulling on his arm, and Arthur is all too happy to follow her lead. He sighs blissfully as she cuddles into him, and buries his face into her soft hair.   
  
“...multiple screaming orgasms, is it, Artie?” she laughs again. She lifts her face, showing an amused expression. “I seem to recall your doing some of the screaming too, you oversexed pirate.”   
  
“You liked it though,” Arthur murmurs, running his hands over her sides - for the sheer sensation of warm, silky skin underneath his fingers, not for any more lewd purpose. For now. It’s true, his sexual drive is higher than it’s ever been, but the lovely, wonderful thing is it’s reciprocated by hers.   
  
“Love it,” Amelia says, confirming. She sighs happily and throws a long leg over his hips, pulling him a little closer. “Love you.”   
  
“I love you too, Amelia,” he whispers. 

 

***

 

They're back in the kitchen, and she's sitting on his lap again; but this time they really are only eating, their meal consisting of two packages of Bisto's Toad in the Hole which had made Amelia giggle when she read the name.

 

They converse in between hungry forkfuls of sausage and Yorkshire pudding. “You silly girl. I thought I was being fairly obvious. And not even ‘for an Englishman.’ Couldn’t you see I was in love with you? That I was trying to show my interest?” Arthur asks, amusement in his voice.  
  
The question is light-hearted, but Amelia’s answer is not.  
  
“ ‘m sorry,” she mumbles into his shoulder, turning her face away. Arthur is going to laugh, but she continues, still not looking.   
  
“I just - I wanted it to be true so bad, I was sure I was making myself read too much into anything you did. I wanted it so much I couldn’t trust myself to really read anything right. Cos I can’t, you know, even when it’s normal stuff. So _this_ …”  
  
She’s remembering nights pacing, nights reading and re-reading and re-reading the letters and emails and texts he sends, nights spent remembering what he’d said, and how, and when, remembering how he’d thrown his arm over her shoulders or brushed his knuckles gently against her cheek, analysing and re-analysing - telling herself it was only Arthur being funny, Arthur being friendly, Arthur being _Arthur_ , don’t fuck it up Amelia, don’t be that girl who can’t take a hint - don’t be the one who makes everything all awkward when she hits on the boy who’s clearly into someone else, don’t throw yourself at someone who’s not - who can’t be - interested, don’t be pathetic, don’t be over-clingy, don’t do it! Or you’ll lose him….  
  
She hugs Arthur tight and exhales a shaking breath. Arthur puts his arm around her, silent, and his resolve to avenge himself on Francis goes up another notch in intensity.  
  
***  
  
“What exactly is the Roosevelt Protocol?” Arthur asks, as they cuddle in bed after a particularly exhausting round.   
  
“Baaaaaasically, it’s when I tell my Bosses to shut up and trust me, no matter how crazy it looks at the moment, and that it’ll all come out all right - in the end. If it doesn’t, I agree to go along with their orders without arguing...I’ve never had to do that,” she explains, smugly. “Named it after Teddy. The first time I did something like this was when we decided to sink the Spanish fleet at Manila Bay, and then when I went with the Rough Riders to San Juan Hill.”  
  
“Mmm,” Arthur responds, smiling. Talk of sunken Spanish fleets always puts him in a good mood. “Have I ever told you how absolutely gorgeous you looked sailing out of Hong Kong to sink Carriedo’s ships?”  
  
“Were you there?” Amelia asked, interested, propping herself up on one elbow to look at her lover. Arthur is momentarily distracted by the new and intriguing view of her chest this affords him.   
  
“Hm? Oh yes. Cheered my bloody head off, in fact,” Arthur admits without shame, possibly to do with the fact that his eyes are fixed on the swell of her breasts and he’s only half-thinking about what he’s saying; the rest of him is remembering how it feels to have his mouth on her. “Saw you on the _Olympia_ , with the sunlight on your face…”   
  
Amelia grins, pleased and flattered. “Aww, that’s sweet of you.” She actually preens a bit. “So you like me in naval uniform, do you?”  
  
“Oh yes,” Arthur breathes, fervently, and Amelia’s eyes gleam with new possibilities.   
  
***  
  
“But you don’t like punk,” says Arthur, as Amelia inspects his record collection. He watches appreciatively as she bends over to look at some of the older records.   
  
“What? Where would you get that impression? Hell, punk started from  _me_ , you know. Garage rock, the Kingsmen, Ed Sanders?”  
  
“But they took it from the British Invasion, and anyway the Who...never mind, let’s not get into that old argument again. What I mean is, you never seemed to like it when  _I_  went punk...so I assumed…”   
  
“Assuming has made an ass of u and me,” Amelia says, softly, then smiles. “I’m probably going to regret telling you this, but you look hella hot in leather, Artie. So, to preserve your allegedly gay virtue, I tried not to focus on you too much so as not to jump your bones.”   
  
***  
  
It turns out Amelia keeps his eagle-and-sapphire ring close. Not on her finger, not around her neck, but mounted keychain-style on the holster she’s always wearing, even at formal events. When she can, she uses a full-sized one at the small of her back for her beloved Colt M1911 (which she has, as usual, retro-fitted and modified with any amount of extras); when she can’t, like when she has to go formal, she wears a smaller, incongruously lacy concealed-carry holster around her thigh for a tiny derringer-style firearm that is nonetheless extremely dangerous.  
  
“Gun nut,” Arthur murmurs lazily, running his fingers up and down the empty holster. (The gun had been carefully unloaded and placed on a high shelf. Although it was made of metal, he’d sprinkled iron dust around it to keep the fae from disturbing it. He decides not to ask how, exactly, she’d fit so many bullets into that tiny gun, and why the bullets were tipped with glowing blue liquid.) He’d asked her to put the holster back on. It had been a very stimulating decision.  
  
“Whatever,” Amelia murmurs back. “I almost cut myself _twice_ trying to get _your_ clothes off, Captain Kirkland. At least I stick to  _one_ gun.”  
  
Arthur’s lazy smile only widens, because he remembers Amelia holding up his old, pirate-age, jewel-hafted daggers - kept razor-sharp and shining with carved runes along the blade - and admiring the matched set openly. He makes a mental note to dig out his old cutlass and outfit. It seems she had admired it for more than simply Hollywood potential. And he is touched by how attached she is to his gift, for all that she’d tried to hide that attachment from him.  
  
Besides, he likes it when she calls him ‘Captain Kirkland’.   
  
**** 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Author's Notes**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  **Spanish-American War** : The most notable sign of a warming in Anglo-American relations during the Great Rapprochement was the United Kingdom's actions during the Spanish–American War. Most Continental European powers remained neutral, while warning Spain repeatedly not to provoke a war with the much more powerful U.S. Britain also remained neutral but openly sided with America. During the 90-day war, Britain sold coal to the U.S. Navy and allowed the U.S. Military to use Britain's undersea cables to communicate. When Commodore Dewey's fleet sailed out of Hong Kong's harbor for Manila, the British soldiers and sailors in the harbor cheered for them.
> 
>  **Teddy Roosevelt** : President McKinley made Roosevelt the Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1897. When the Spanish allegedly sunk the USS Maine off the coast of Cuba while his boss was on vacation, TR sent Admiral Dewey to the Philippines to take out the Spanish Navy. Roosevelt then declared a state of War with Spain, despite the fact the he had absolutely no authority to do so. Acting on Roosevelt's orders, Dewey then sunk the entire Spanish fleet at Manila in about four hours. Immediately after issuing the declaration of War and giving the Spanish Armada a one-way all-expenses-paid trip to the bottom of the fucking ocean, Roosevelt resigned his post as Assistant Secretary and formed his own volunteer cavalry regiment called the "Rough Riders". He took anybody who wanted to join, regardless of race or creed, and headed out to Cuba to whomp asses. At the Battle of San Juan Hill, the decisive battle that sealed the American victory in Cuba, Roosevelt won the Congressional Medal of Honor for "conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity" and was promoted to Colonel. (As per Badass of the Week’s entry on T. Roosevelt)
> 
>  **Punk** : The punk subculture emerged in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia in the mid-1970s. Exactly which region originated punk has long been a major controversy within the movement. Early punk had an abundance of antecedents and influences, and Jon Savage describes the subculture as a "bricolage" of almost every previous youth culture in the Western world since World War II, "stuck together with safety pins". In the early and mid-1960s, garage rock bands that came to be recognized as punk rock's progenitors began springing up around North America. The Kingsmen, from Portland, Oregon, had a hit with their 1963 cover of "Louie, Louie," cited as "punk rock's defining ur-text." The minimalist sound of many garage rock bands was influenced by the harder-edged wing of the British Invasion.


	9. Winchester and Captain Crunchberries

For a beautiful long while, Amelia and Arthur forget the outside world - their duties and their lands, their troubles and their plans, their goals and their worries, their friends and their foes - and focus only on each other. Days and nights slip by unnoticed; they sleep, wake to each other, and love.  
  
There’s sex, lots of it - a borderline-scary and exhausting amount of it, in fact. But while the hunger doesn’t quite fade away, the desperation does; they start to believe, deep down in their bones, that this is _real_ and not something that will disappear in the morning.  
  
So they talk. They exchange jokes. They make plans for the future, and explain lingering misunderstandings from the past. They quiz each other on obscure bits of trivia. They sit in front of a roaring fire and sip wine from Arthur’s small but excellent stock, Arthur from a wine glass and Amelia, with all the delight of a small child, from a silver quaich Arthur remembers stealing from his brother in the sixteenth century.  
  
They visit Winchester for a day out. Arthur keeps his arm around her waist almost constantly, smugly enjoying the mix of envy and “Nice job, mate!” emanating from nearby males. He doesn’t notice Amelia warding off appreciative female attention with a sickeningly sweet smile that silently promises, “Bitch, I will  _cut you_.” She’s also careful to keep herself positioned so that Arthur never has a reason to take his arm from her.

 

She’s wearing an oversized button-up shirt, one of Arthur’s, and she’s kept the top buttons undone. The too-large shirt slips slightly down one shoulder, and she knows her collar is exposed. She notices Arthur’s eyes slipping in that direction often - lingering on the reddish-purple love-bites he’s left on her skin. She catches herself tilting her head slightly, showing off both to Arthur and to anyone - girls and guys - with a tendency to look too long at  _her_  lover. Now that she has him, she will fight like the devil to keep him. Arthur, stopping his hand in mid-air as he reaches to possessively stroke a particularly dark bruise on the edge of her collar-bone, is thinking the same thing.  
  
Amelia buys herself some new clothes, having been forced to wear Arthur’s since they got to his castle, and he is discovering he has quite a  _thing_  for her engulfed in his garments. So even though she does look very nice in the stylish jeans and jersey top she purchases from the boutiques in The Square, he wonders how he can get her back in his clothes - at least his shirt.   
  
They lunch at The Black Rat, after Arthur assures Amelia that the name has nothing to do with its bill of fare. After days (and nights) of intense physical activity and getting by on whatever non-perishable/frozen foods Arthur had stashed in the kitchen, they are both half-starved. They order several dishes: rabbit saddle wrapped in bacon and caul fat, Cornish mackerel made into peppered fishcakes, mashed Jersey royals, honey-smoked Hampshire duck breast, fresh breads and artisanal cheeses, watercress salad and caramelised onions, veal sweetbreads with shaved truffles. Amelia loves the food, and Arthur is torn - on the one hand, he likes to see Amelia enjoying good solid British fare, all made from local ingredients; on the other, it is a bit annoying that she would devour these dishes but reject his, since he makes basically the same things - just a little less effete. So what if the chef has a Michelin star? Stupid frog-given things, it’s all rigged anyway.   
  
But Amelia’s clear delight, the admittedly good (and satisfyingly British) food, and the quaint, quirky atmosphere wipe away his annoyance and Arthur finds himself quite happy with everyone and everything in his immediate vicinity. He tells her stories of King Cnut and King Alfred, and she laughs at tales of burnt cakes and rebuked tides. Heads turn whenever laughter rings out from the table of that unusually attractive couple, and the chef comes out to personally check on their experience. Amelia charms him with her American accent and wide smile, and their dessert - Eccles cakes with fennel ice cream and sea buckthorn possets - ends up being on the house.  
  
“Hey,” Amelia says in mild surprise as they step out of the restaurant. “I think that was our first date?”   
  
***  
  
They’re back at the castle, dozing lightly on the chesterfield which has been dubbed “the place we first did it” by Amelia. A box of chocolates lies open and half-empty on a nearby table, and they're pressed together skin to skin. Arthur wakes as something tickles his ear; he blinks blearily until he can see sparkling motes of light flittering about him and Amelia. He smiles, greeting his fairy friends in a whisper. They’d been ecstatic to see him and Amelia “finally pledged,” as they put it, even trying to help out by lighting candles around them and encouraging the gardens to bloom.   
  
They’ve always been very fond of Amelia, for some reason, for all that she can’t see them; they flock around her whenever they can, fascinated by the vitality she radiates. It’s a bit strange - Arthur doesn’t know why Amelia is so blind to the fae, and to supernatural energy in general, when even the most unmagical Nations can see the fae occasionally. And he doesn’t know why the fairies flock to her, although he wishes, sometimes, he could tell them to stop. Their presence near Amelia means they interfere, even if in minor fashion, with the warp and weft of reality, and Amelia - not being able to see them - has subconsciously learnt to grow jumpy and nervous when they start affecting her surroundings.   
  
But right now they’re blessing her with their approval, and Arthur is glad he’s got theirs too. Amelia’s hair glimmers with silvery highlights in the strange, otherworldly glow of the fairies, and Arthur admires the effect. He tucks a lock of golden hair behind her ear, and she stirs sleepily, blinking hazy blue eyes at him for a moment before sinking back into slumber with a sweet, trusting smile curving the corners of her lips. Arthur feels a pang in his chest, painful and sweet, at the sight.  
  
He looks up as soft nickering reaches his ears, smiling to see some of the unicorns from the herd that roams this castle’s gardens trotting curiously into the room. A small, pale blue mare - his particular favorite, though he tries not to show that too much - comes all the way to them, snuffling inquiringly at Amelia.  
  
Arthur is distracted from the sight of Blu trying to chew on Amelia’s hair when he hears something truly unusual - the snort of an angry unicorn. His head snaps up to see a young unicorn stallion, fiery-red in color, shouldering its way to the front. It takes him a moment to realize it’s not one of the usual castle herd, or at least it isn’t anymore - it’s the little unicorn he’d brought to Amelia for her bicentennial, its usual pinkish coloration deepened from anger.   
  
Arthur swallows nervously as the now-red stallion glowers at him. Unicorns look sweet and pretty, and - well - they _are_ , but they could get truly nasty when angered. What had he done to earn such a look from a unicorn…?  
  
Then the red stallion joins Blu in snuffling at Amelia, its color calms to its usual pink, and Arthur realizes why. Well, Amelia had always been charming to the four-footed folk, and he had hoped that a unicorn nearby would bring her good fortune and protection against more malevolent-minded beings. But this over-protective anger…  
  
Then the pink unicorn whinnies softly, its horn glows, and it dips its head and begins healing her. To be specific, it begins healing the bruised love-bites Arthur had given Amelia, the marks fading under the glow of the unicorn-horn like watercolors running, leaving behind only unmarked skin.  
  
Arthur squawks in dismay and actually swats at the stallion’s nose. “Stop that!”  
  
The unicorn snorts again, shaking its head and making its mane ripple. A pulse of fiery-red color radiates from its horn through its coat. It eyes Arthur with a gimlet stare. Arthur stares back.  
  
“I mean it! Those are special!”  
  
Amelia awakens thus, to her lover arguing with thin air and flailing his free hand (the other is clutching Amelia to his chest, protectively) at nothing.   
  
“Arth’r?” she yawns. “Whassit…?”  
  
Then, though she can’t see anything, she feels a spot of warmth bloom and then fade on her throat, and realizes what - who - it is.

  
“Captain Crunchberries!” she cries, making both Arthur and the unicorn pause.   
  
“Captain...Crunchberries?” Arthur repeats, incredulously.  
  
“It’s his favorite cereal,” Amelia says, defensively. “I would call to tell him it was ready, and eventually we decided it made a good name...oh shut up!”  
  
Captain Crunchberries whickers fondly, nuzzling Amelia now that she’s awake. If, in the process, his horn pokes Arthur painfully, that’s evidently none of the unicorn’s concern.   
  
Amelia smiles uncertainly, knowing the unicorn was near but still unable to sense him. Even his nuzzling only felt like the merest brushings of a light breeze to her. She raises one hand, hesitantly, before letting it drop down again. She touches her throat, feeling the smooth, unmarked skin with slow fingertips.   
  
“Oh…”  
  
Arthur looks upset. He’s thinking about the hand raised in the air without knowing where to reach. He’s thinking about fading colors on golden skin. Suddenly, he lunges upwards and forwards, fastening his teeth on the curve of her shoulder and sucking hard.   
  
“Ah! Arthur…?!”   
  
The unicorn is forced back, snorting and brandishing its horn angrily. The other unicorns had vacated the room, except Blu, who watches with the cool wisdom of an ancient and experienced unicorn. Arthur is only spurred on by the stallion’s anger, feeling an unthinking, unmistakable need to reassert his claim, to repaint all the marks of his love that the unicorn had so blithely taken away.   
  
Amelia, however, is pushing at him. “Arthur!” she hisses. Her cheeks are flushed with either anger or desire - possibly both. “Not in front of Crunchy!”  
  
Arthur grunts, but stops. He wonders whether he should explain that doing it in front of Crunchy is exactly the point.   
  
Blu solves the dilemma by audibly sighing and herding the bigger stallion out exactly as a collie does with a wayward lamb. Arthur watches them go, a smile slowly curving his mouth - he owes Blu a bouquet of tea roses. She does so enjoy their taste.  
  
When he looks back, Amelia is watching him with wistful envy. His smile softens and he bends his head to kiss her gently. He knows, now, that she believes in the fae; she’d pretended not to, because she had wished she didn’t, because she had wanted to hurt him and then was too ashamed to take it back, and to avoid confronting her strange blindness. He wonders if it would be easier if she truly didn’t believe.  
  
His kisses turn harder, more forceful, as his mouth moves from her own further down, deliberately marking her. She begins with sighing and squirming - soon enough, she’s panting, rutting against his thigh. He bites down harder than usual when she presses against his erection, and to his surprised delight she comes, screaming wordlessly and squeezing his thigh tight between her legs.   
  
He can hear hooves galloping to the still-open door. Without looking, without thinking, he flips her over, grabs her hips, and mounts her from behind. She’s still rippling and pulsing from her orgasm as he enters her, and the sensation is delicious - he lets out a long, low moan. She replies with ecstatic, liquid sounds as he begins to thrust. She rocks her hips back in time with Arthur’s thrusting, and he marvels silently at how effortlessly their bodies can fall into sync before abandoning thought in favor of pure sensation, primal imperatives.   
  
He fucks her hard, rough, his hips pistoning in and out while he bites and sucks at her skin, nipping at the small of her back, fastening his mouth over her shoulder blades. She’s trembling, actually mewling, her elbows bent and her forehead pressed against the leather of the chesterfield. He bites down so hard he tastes blood, and at that moment she comes again, her second climax triggering his own.   
  
They collapse together in a sweaty, well-fucked pile of trembling limbs, Arthur licking slowly and apologetically at the small wound he’s given her. He nuzzles her, refusing to move aside from that, and she sighs blissfully.   
  
Arthur wonders hazily how much Crunchy had seen, and has a possessive hope the little interfering thing had seen everything - seen Arthur taking her like a stallion. There was no way Crunchy could have misinterpreted  _that_ , or Amelia’s pleasure.   
  
 _‘Point to me, unicorn!’_  he thinks proudly, then passes out in satisfied, post-coital exhaustion.   
  
He will wake up when Amelia shoves him roughly off her and onto the floor, and will have to watch as she clothes herself (no!), calls to “Captain Crunchberries!” (no!) and leaves him (no!) to feed the damn unicorn a bowl of Kellog’s Milk Chocolate Kraves cereal, “to apologize for traumatizing the poor baby. You giant pervert, Artie!”

 

*** 

**Author's Notes**

 

 **Quaich** : archaically quaigh or quoich, a special kind of shallow two-handled drinking cup or bowl in Scotland. The quaich was used for whisky or brandy.  
  
 **Amelia’s new top:** http://www.fennwrightmanson.com/tops_shirts/marissa_top.htm   
  
 **Winchester** : the county seat of Hampshire, and former capital of England. Both King Alfred and King Cnut are associated with it.   
  
 **King Cnut** : more commonly known as Canute, was a king of Denmark, England, Norway, and parts of Sweden. Cnut died at Shaftesbury in Dorset, and was buried in the Old Minster, Winchester. According to one story, Cnut set his throne by the sea shore and commanded the incoming tide to halt and not wet his feet and robes. Yet "continuing to rise as usual [the tide] dashed over his feet and legs without respect to his royal person.” (Note: Cnut didn’t do this ecause he thought the waves would actually obey him, but because he wanted to make a point to some flattering courtiers - at least, according to the story).  
  
 **King Alfred the Great** : Alfred is the only English monarch to be accorded the epithet "the Great". A popular legend says Alfred was given shelter by a peasant woman who, unaware of his identity, left him to watch some cakes she had left cooking on the fire. Preoccupied with the problems of his kingdom, Alfred accidentally let the cakes burn. The peasant woman came back and hit him for his lack of attention.  
  
(Sidenote: It’s ridiculous how much research I put into something that doesn’t really matter. My computer now thinks I’m planning a trip to Winchester and all the ads are for tickets to the UK, etc. But it was fun! And I got so hungry writing their date.)  
  
 **The Black Rat** : A real place! It’s a Michelin-starred restaurant in Winchester. The building itself dates back to the 1700s, and used to be a pub. They claim:  _“The food is sourced from the best and most local suppliers that can be found, including our own forager, inspiring the kitchen team to create a ‘Modern British’ menu.”_  I based the menu off stuff they’ve really served there! I tried to pick stuff that sounds super British, but I - not being British - may have been wrong. Apologies if so. And I will bet the chef is actually loads better than poor Arthur, but nothing will convince Arthur of that.   
  
 **Rabbit** : Has been a staple food in Britain for centuries. They relied on it before and during the Second World War, because it was cheap and plentiful. Cooked properly, wild rabbit is very tender.   
  
 **Sweetbreads** : made from an animal's pancreas and thymus glands (called the "heart sweetbread" and "throat sweetbread," respectively). Why are they called sweetbreads? They are  _sweet_  because they taste richer and sweeter compared to typical meat, and they are  _bread_  because the old English word for flesh is _bræd._  
  
 **Jersey Royal** : A type of potato. Only those grown on the island of Jersey can be referred to as Jersey Royals because the term is a trademark.  
  
 **Eccles cakes** : small, round cakes filled with currants and made from flaky pastry with butter, sometimes topped with demerara sugar. They are named after the English town of Eccles.  
  
 **Fennel** : widely cultivated for its edible, strongly flavoured leaves and fruits. As Old English finule, fennel is one of the nine plants invoked in the pagan Anglo-Saxon Nine Herbs Charm, recorded in the 10th century.  
  
 **Posset** : British hot drink of milk curdled with wine or ale, often spiced, which was popular from medieval times to the 19th century. The word "posset" is mostly used nowadays for a cold set dessert loosely based on the drink, containing cream and lemon.  
  
 **Captain Crunchberries** : Strictly speaking, his name should be “Cap’n Crunch Crunch Berries” but Amelia shortened it.  
  
 **Kellog’s Milk Chocolate Kraves** : A chocolate cereal made by the Kellogg Company. It was introduced in the UK in 2010. It has chocolate inside it! It sounds more like candy to me. So of course, I bet Amelia was stoked to find it at Winchester’s local Tesco’s, which she and Arthur hit for a massive supply run after lunch.


	10. Back to the Real World

Arthur is still sulking, hours later, making frequent comments about unicorn hypocrisy, and unicorns being intensely sexual themselves. “It’s not like Captain bloody Crunchberry didn’t grow up watching the other unicorns fuck! It’s not like he doesn’t bloody know what mating is!” he complains. She hadn’t minded telling her own generals that she was sleeping with him - enthusiastically, even. She hadn’t minded Arthur telling his prime minister that he made her scream. And this unicorn, this traitor - he was the one who sent Crunchy to her, for Christ’s sake! - makes her call him a pervert?   
  
“Still, I don’t like my Crunchy being upset,” she says, frowning at Arthur. “I’d be the same if it was Whaley or Tony.”   
  
“Oh god, that fucking alien. Can’t wait for him to call me a fucking Limey - no, fucking pervert, I suppose, will be his new name for me.”   
  
“Aw, Tony likes you! He’s just kind of tsundere, you should appreciate that. And you  _are_ a pervert. Don’t think I haven’t forgotten that you’ve been watching me undress all along under false pretences.”  
  
“I didn’t know you thought I was gay!” Arthur retorts. “I just thought...well...ah…”  
  
“You weren’t thinking very much,” she completes his sentence for him, wryly. “At least, not with the usual head.”   
  
“I thought you just trusted me a lot. Like...like a little kid letting their big brother dress them,” Arthur admits.  
  
“Before I thought you were gay, that was my biggest hang-up...that you saw me as a little sister. And then, you seeing me as a little sister seemed to be the only reason you hung out with me, since I  _knew_  it couldn’t be that you liked me - as in like-liked me,” Amelia confesses in return.  
  
“...we’re both idiots, aren’t we?” Arthur says, after a long pause.  
  
Amelia nods, sliding into his lap for a hug, and Arthur feels the last of his sulks melt away.   
  
“You’re still a pervert though,” she comments, after a while.   
  
Arthur can smile now, though, and purr into her hair, “I promise, only for you, darling.”  
  
***  
  
Eventually their idyll in Arthur’s castle has to end. They pack up, Arthur telling the brownies they’re welcome to any food in the kitchen, and don business attire. Arthur takes them to the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square, feeling happy about how easy it is to bring Amelia along - it speaks well of their bond. From there, after dropping Amelia off, he takes the underground to 10 Downing Street, choosing to conserve his power and not in any real hurry to meet with the Prime Minister.  
  
He thinks about Amelia on the train-ride - remembering their last moments in the castle, having breakfast in bed together in the early morning. He had made the tea - Amelia’s more a cup of milk and sugar lightly tinged with Earl Grey than anything else - and she had poured cereal into bowls. They had hand-fed each other bits of cereal and fruit, nipping at each other’s fingers and being so ridiculously affectionate he should have gagged, but somehow he hadn’t.

And then he’d made love to her - “One last for the road,” he’d cajoled her. He remembers her lying on his bed, striped with sunlight coming through the Venetian blinds, having worn another of his shirts as sleepwear - this time an old Manchester United jersey, worn and somewhat threadbare, the zip-up collar open to reveal the beginnings of her cleavage. He had gone it slow, tender, and she had sighed happily and let him, eyes closed and face sweetly lax in pleasure as he worshiped her body with his.   
  
He smiles just from the memory, and probably from the post-coital high he’s still riding, and is very pleasant to everyone on the train. Most people think this open, smiling good-will so early in the morning is very un-British, and regard him with suspicion.   
  
***  
  
He arrives at 10 Downing Street, still in a good mood, and takes the time to pet Larry the Chief Mouser. He’s still smiling broadly as he walks - very jauntily - into the Prime Minister’s office.  
  
The Prime Minister looks haggard, rumpled, his suit wrinkled and creased as if he’d slept in it. The look on his face is distinctly tired, and his cheekbones are more prominent than they had been previously. His eyes, as they meet Arthur’s, are not happy.   
  
He makes it clear to Arthur that he is holding his Nation responsible for “Everything so far - everything!”, including but not limited to:  
  
\- Leaving Winfield House the way he had - which is to say, having first hauled Amelia violently into a room which he then locked, and disappearing soon after witnesses report hearing Ms. Jones sob, “ _Don’t_ , oh please don’t!”   
  
\- The Americans then being overcome with fear that England was planning nefarious and horrible things for their Nation, possibly to regain control and reduce them to colonial subjects once more.  
  
\- The Americans responding to this by sending their closest carrier strike group towards the British isles at top speed, all hands at battle-stations.   
  
\- The Americans, once Amelia had averted the risk of very unpleasant naval encounters by invoking the Roosevelt Protocol, deciding to pitch the carrier strike group’s presence as a goodwill visit. This includes allowing a cruiser and a destroyer - the two most forward elements of the strike group - to dock at the naval base in Portsmouth and granting shore leave - liberty, they call it, which is so American Arthur finds it adorable in his present frame of mind - to hundreds of young sailors.  
  
\- These hundreds of young, fit American sailors then flooding Portsmouth and finding more-than-usually receptive and welcoming young Englishmen and Englishwomen. This, the Prime Minister explains with lifted brow, is a phenomenon that seems oddly constrained to those, of either nationality, between the ages of 19 and 23. And now American naval officers, school heads, angry parents, and more, are having to deal with a greater-than-usual number of cross-Atlantic romances.   
  
\- The gray hairs the Prime Minister has sprouted dealing with the whole debacle.  
  
The Prime Minister would be very disappointed to learn that the main concept Arthur takes away from this is that there are American naval ships available for him and Amelia to play with/on, located conveniently near several of his own ships. A mock-battle would be excellent fun.  
  
***   
  
Amelia manages to wrangle an agreement from her Boss - she will stay in London, for the time being, working out of the US Embassy everyday, and also using it as a base for a goodwill tour of the rest of Europe. She will also personally assess certain issues regarding NATO, US military bases abroad, and rumblings from further east. The ships in Portsmouth will remain at her disposal. She is helped by rather positive numbers popping up in the US economy, and the UK’s too, and her implying heavily that it is due to the “stimulus package” she has been receiving.   
  
Arthur tells her she’s brilliant and promptly uses her line on his own government.  
  
***  
  
She stays, of course, in Arthur’s Kensington townhouse. Blu and Crunchy have tagged along, but Crunchy and Arthur have come to an understanding, so Arthur doesn’t mind the stallion, and of course he loves Blu. Arthur’s neighbors, more used to a reclusive, silent, privacy-loving mystery diplomat (as far as they can tell), are astonished by his sudden revelation as young, handsome, and smiling, with a frankly stunning American blonde on his arm. They go for strolls and Amelia actually starts conversations with the neighbors. Many of them ring the newspapers and/or private investigators to see if the young couple are actually Hollywood stars trying to go incognito.   
  
“I thought he was gay?” says one neighbor to his wife, watching as Amelia lays her head on her lover’s shoulder as they walk home one evening, sharing an umbrella against London’s drizzle. (The rain and sky seem lighter than usual, lately.)   
  
“I did as well, to be honest,” his wife confesses.  
  
***  
  
  
 **Author’s Notes:**  
  
Finally approaching the end! I’m contemplating a scene with Arthur and the royal family, but am a bit uncertain as to how to approach it. Definitely going to be a scene with the Commonwealth. And I still don’t know what Arthur will do to Francis.  
  
 **Unicorns** : It’s always been my headcanon, probably helped along by my childhood love of "The Last Unicorn”, that unicorns are actually really formidable. Backed by some old legends, and as a commenter-anon noted in the last chapter, the horn can be seen as a phallic symbol. “Unicorns were worshipped by the ancient Babylonians, and written descriptions of them appear in texts from the ancient Persians, the Romans, the Greeks and ancient Jewish scholars, all describing a horse-like creature whose single horn had magical properties and could heal disease. In Celtic mythology, the Unicorn of Scotland ...was also seen as a symbol of masculinity and power." Penny Eley's book about the 12th century French literary work "Partonopeus de Blois" also notes that the whole “unicorns and virgins” thing stems from the tradition that the unicorn is so fantastically fierce and dangerous that he couldn’t be hunted in the normal way. “...the unicorn is an ideal companion for the werewolf, bear and lion in a list of creatures which are particularly dangerous when hungry.”   
  
 **Larry the Chief Mouser** : Larry is the 10 Downing Street cat and is Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office. Larry is a brown and white tabby, believed to have been born c. January 2007. According to the Daily Telegraph, he is one of 100,000 cats employed by the British government to keep down mice. The Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office is the title of the official resident cat of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom at 10 Downing Street. There has been a resident Treasury or Downing Street cat employed as a mouser and pet since the reign of Henry VIII] when Cardinal Wolsey placed his cat by his side while acting in his judicial capacity as Lord Chancellor, an office he assumed in 1515.  
  
 **Shore leave** : the leave that professional sailors get to spend on dry land. It is also known as "liberty" within the United States Navy and Marine Corps.  
  
 **Portsmouth** : The second largest city in Hampshire. As a significant naval port for centuries, Portsmouth is home to the world's oldest dry dock still in use and also home to some famous ships, including HMS Warrior, the Tudor carrack Mary Rose and Lord Nelson's flagship, HMS Victory. Although smaller than in its heyday, the naval base remains a major dockyard and base for the Royal Navy and Royal Marine Commandos whose Headquarters resides there.   
  
 **Carrier strike group (CSG)** : an operational formation of the United States Navy. It is composed of an aircraft carrier, at least one cruiser, a destroyer squadron of at least two destroyers and/or frigates, and a carrier air wing. Previously referred to as Carrier Battle Groups (a term still used by other nations), they are often referred to by the carrier they are associated with. I choose to believe the one they sent is the Norfolk-based (that is, US Norfolk) Carrier Strike Group 2. The ships that dock in Portsmouth are the  _USS Philippine Sea_ , and the  _USS Mason_. Additionally, the flagship of CSG2 is  _USS George HW Bush_ , whose callsign is  _Avenger_. So, yes, I choose to believe Amelia has a strike force she calls the Avengers at her disposal.


	11. Armored Bears and Jenkins' Ear

Arthur is over a thousand years old, wise and clever and well-versed on the foibles of men. He’s been maneuvering around uprisings, civil wars, invading empires and rebellious subjects for centuries, he can do it in his sleep. He  _has_  done it in his sleep, almost - he was, apparently, half-drowsing during the parliamentary session that led to the War of Jenkins’ Ear. He will have no trouble with his government, or at least nothing he can’t brush away.   
  
The same cannot be guaranteed for Amelia. She knows she’s seen as a kid, almost, by many of the other Nations. That’s not so bad, actually, because Nations are nice to Nation-kids and it’s also hella useful for maneuvering around them to get what she wants. However, when her own government treats her less like a colleague and more like a child to be pacified, that’s less amusing.   
  
And, to add to that, she looks female. She’s a Nation, with a population neatly split between male and female, but that has nothing to do with who looks like a boy and who looks like a girl with Nations. After all, Belarus and Hungary are not particularly female-dominated either - and who can possibly explain China? But America looks female, and to be honest she thinks she  _is_  female, or at least different as to how she would be if she looked male.  
  
The problem is Americans tend to discount powerful females. Not as badly as it could be in some other countries, or maybe not even as badly as most other countries. She and her women had made some great strides in the field - fuck yeah, voting! - but it’s not fixed yet. Not even for her, the Nation herself. She will need to - take steps.   
  
In short - as Arthur drops her off in front of the US Embassy with one last kiss, the loving smile drops from Amelia’s face and turns into something colder, something dangerous, when Arthur’s not around to see.   
  
Her smile, now, is the Alaska-cold, Cheyenne-bunkered smile of the Cold War chessmaster.  
  
***  
  
She doesn’t march into the Embassy. She takes a side-entrance (usually employed by catering staff) and goes into her own personal office without anyone the wiser. She sips coffee - her own special blend, created in the custom coffeemakers she installs in every one of her offices - as she quickly reviews the reports on her laptop.   
  
And then, ignoring the repeated requests for a meeting from various officials, she issues her own summons.   
  
***   
  
She’s already seated at the head of the table, her hair tied back into a knot so severely utilitarian that Germany would have nodded in approval (while France would have wailed about the damage to the follicles) as various generals and diplomats file into the room. She begins - purposely - before everyone is seated.  
  
“Who,” she demands, in a voice like Pittsburgh steel, “is the absolute fucking moron who sent a battlegroup at the United Kingdom?”   
  
***  
  
By the end of the meeting, multiple generals and admirals have been demoted, one admiral is outright dismissed in disgrace, certain majors, colonels and captains are promoted to take their place (warned, later, that if they fuck up they will _really_ not like what happens next), and a whole group of diplomats have been reduced to tears. She sends half the room out, invites in more people, and then soothingly, gently, makes them all feel better. She shows bar graphs and Venn diagrams and screenshots of headlines that are wonderfully positive and upwards-trending, and mentions how the positive developments started at the same time as her relationship with England. She makes sure to mention the increased profits of companies that several people in the room have ties to.   
  
By the end, the Americans are either sure that this is the greatest idea they had ever had, and weren’t they clever to help encourage better US/UK ties; or they are terrified of losing their positions to an unexpectedly dangerous and frightening Nation with vendetta in her eyes. Some are both.   
  
*** 

Amelia insists on meeting with Arthur’s Prime Minister. He is Arthur’s Boss (well, one of them) and the one with more interaction with Amelia’s Boss. The Prime Minister is also unhappy with what has transpired as a result of Arthur and Amelia’s developing relationship. So, she is anxious to make a good impression on him - anxious about everything and everyone who might possibly try to push her Arthur away from her. She succeeds, brilliantly - in fact, by the end of their impromptu meeting (Arthur had brought Amelia along to his regularly-scheduled briefing, which had - of late - devolved into sessions of the Prime Minister staring accusingly and/or mournfully at him), the Prime Minister feels more warmly towards her than towards Arthur himself.

This is because Amelia, unlike Arthur, apologizes - apologizes in her prettiest and most winning manner. The Prime Minister is too human not to be pleased when she tells him that the most bellicose and troublesome American officials have been “removed,” and that everyone involved in this “distressing, distressing situation” have been reprimanded. He is too canny a politician not to be blind to the advantages of a closer alliance with the superpower Nation, with a battlegroup buttressing his own country’s naval might, especially in these troubled times - and especially one, now that he thinks about it, with several hundred sailors now intimately and passionately interested in British well-being. He’s also more inclined to be favorable to the match between his country and the US now that all those lovely, lovely positive socio-economic statistics are pouring in.

So Amelia’s mission to charm the Prime Minister is a complete success, Arthur is sure it’s all because of his influence that she’s so skilled in diplomacy, and everyone is happy.

(The notion that the Prime Minister, as an Englishman born and bred, might be - somewhere deep inside him - predisposed to have a positive impression of Amelia, now that his Nation is completely besotted with her and free to show it, does not occur to either man. It does occur to Amelia, though, who has several social media accounts and has noticed a distinct increase in the number of Americans professing their love and affection for British actors, singers, athletes, culture, and so on.)

 

***

 

Scott eyes his younger brother’s wide, shit-eating grin with disapproval. Arthur has been beaming with joy since the start of the meeting. “You’re so fucking creepy when you’re happy. Stop it,” he suggests.  
  
Arthur’s grin only widens. “I can’t help it. When I think of how I’m going to break Bonnefoy’s fingers one by one, and then make him watch as I set fire to his wine cellars...”  
  
Scott hisses, “Arthur, the French Ambassador is here!”  
  
“Oh, I am sorry,” Arthur says, turning to face the rather pale man. Then, in fluent if deliberately accented French, “First, I will break Bonnefoy’s fingers, each one separately, and then I will set fire to his wine cellar...”  
  
***  
  
The reunion sex will be spectacular.  
  
Arthur tells himself this, over and over again, trying to concentrate on that rather than on the fact that Amelia has left him - left England, the country, not left England-Arthur.  
  
It’s only for a short while; she’s just visiting Germany for a bit, needing to talk NATO and air base business. She’s only going to be gone for three days. She’s not across the Atlantic, she’s just two hour’s flight away and still, arguably, on the same continent. (He is somewhat ambivalent on whether he is European or not.) She calls him multiple times a day, texts him even more often, and every night they Skype video-chat until they both fall asleep. Crunchy is with her, so Arthur can rest assured she’s magically protected. It’s so much better than how it was before, when months and years passed between trans-Atlantic crossings. He tells himself all this, and yet he has to fight hard to keep from visibly sulking.   
  
He would have gone with her, except that there’s a Commonwealth meeting that he cannot miss. He’d asked.   
  
But, he reminds himself, the reunion sex will be spectacular. He’s already prepared the Rodda’s and the silken ropes.   
  
He looks up when someone enters the room - it’s his brother Alun, Wales, slamming the door behind him as he converses lightly with Jamie, New Zealand. Arthur watches them idly as they move to their seats, his eyes drifting from Jamie towards his louder brother, Bobby, Australia. Arthur’s impressive brows furrow as he notices Bobby’s sour expression and crossed arms, something quite unlike the sunny, good-natured Nation. It’s unusual enough to pull Arthur out of his own sulks.  
  
Alun gets up to grab a cup of tea, and Arthur slides over into his brother’s seat. “What’s wrong with Bobby?” he asks Jamie.   
  
“Oh,” Jamie sighs, not even bothering to look at Bobby. “He’s just upset because he’s been trying to crack onto Amelia for ages, and he thought you were out of the running because of, you know, being gay. Turns out you’re not.”  
  
Arthur chokes violently. "He wanted - he thought - did _everyone_ think I was gay?" he demands, only for Jamie's reply to be cut off.  
  
“ _ENGLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND_!” A scream shatters the air, and suddenly the wall beside the door is gone, crumbled into rubble from the force of a charging bear. It takes everyone a moment to realize that the scary, screaming, hockey-masked figure riding on top of the armored polar bear and wielding a hockey stick with enthusiastically violent intent is Canada.   
  
“You gigantic pervert, stay away from my sister!” Matthew howls, and charges.   
  
***  
  
 **AN:**

  
 **The War of Jenkins' Ear** : There was a British navy captain named Robert Jenkins. Jenkins's ship was boarded by nefarious Spaniards in 1731, and they, for reasons best known to them, felt it an appropriate time to slice off the good captain's ear. By 1739, Britain had become bored of sitting around and not shooting the Spanish, so, to provide a reason to go to war, a Parliamentary hearing was called about Jenkins's de-earing eight years earlier, and he got to parade his severed and probably rather shriveled ear around parliament. Everyone there immediately declared this was a huge insult to the nation and war must begin forthwith. From the British perspective, the war was notable because it was the first time that a regiment of colonial American troops was raised and placed "on the Establishment" - made a part of the Regular British Army - and sent to fight outside of North America. (from Cracked.com)  
  
 **Crack onto** : Australian slang meaning to hit on someone, or make a move on someone.  
  
 **Rodda’s** : Famous British firm that makes clotted cream.  
  
And that's about it, ladies and gentlemen, save for a short epilogue!


End file.
